Manufacturers of data center components, such as network switches, storage arrays, and computing blades, generally supply their customers with drivers for allowing operating systems and programs to communicate with the components. The drivers for the components are generally specific to particular component types. For example, one driver may be provided for a particular type of server blade, another driver may be provided for a particular type of disk array, and yet another driver may be provided for a particular type of network switch.
The components used in data centers typically employ a variety of protocols. For example, network components of a data center often communicate using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), storage arrays typically communicate using CIM (Common Interface Model), and certain computing blades and assemblies communicate using XML-APIs.
In a conventional arrangement, a data center is constructed from a variety of network, storage, and compute components, and an administrator communicates with the components using the drivers supplied with the respective components.